- Trial lecture starts at: 10:00
- Public defence starts at: 12:00
Title of trial lecture: Characteristic Features of Nordic Children’s Biographies Since the 2000s in Light of Recent Research on Children’s Non-Fiction (translated from Norwegian)
Disputation chair: leader of the PhD programme Professor Årstein
Assessment committee:
- First opponent: Senior Researcher Anna Karlskov Skyggebjerg, from University College Copenhagen
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Inger-Kristin Larsen Vie, from the University of Inland Norway
- Chair of assessment committee: Professor Reinhard Hennig, UiA
Supervisors in the doctoral work:
- Main supervisor: Professor Unni Langås, UiA
- Co-supervisor: Professor Svein Slettan, UiA
Summary of thesis
This thesis examines how a postmemory perspective, understood as the mediation of memories by descendants and by those outside the immediate familial circle, is expressed in the interplay between images and text in books categorized as literary non-fiction for children. The material consists of Brevet frå krigen (2017) by Ingunn Røyset, Øverst på nazistenes liste (2014) by Arne Vestbø, and Paulas reise (2019) by Torunn Berge.
The study is based on close textual analyses and focuses particularly on the mediation that takes place in the phototextual interplay and in the narrative strategies employed.
These strategies are developed with a young reader in mind, thereby giving the analyses a reader-oriented dimension, with particular emphasis on how text and images facilitate identification and affective response. Through close readings, the thesis investigates how the books convey experiences of war in ways that not only provide factual knowledge, but also create affective, sensory, and identificatory experiences. By directing attention to the interaction between text and image, and to how the past is aestheticized, documented, and made meaningful for new generations, the thesis contribute to an understanding of how the war continues to live on as memory. At the same time, it demonstrates how this interplay opens distinctive modes of experiential mediation in literature for young readers.
The theoretical framework is grounded in four key concepts: memory literature, postmemory studies, phototextuality, and the national master narrative, where postmemory and phototextuality are the main theoretical focal points of the thesis. Memory literature, here understood as literature of recollection, refers to texts that draw on remembered experience and operate at the intersection of fact and fiction, often aligning with the tradition of testimony. The concept of postmemory refers to testimonies by descendants of war victims, and, in an extended sense, also by actors outside the familial sphere, such as artists and authors. As such testimonies are often conveyed through the interaction of text and image, theories of phototextuality provide a framework for analysing this interplay. In a Norwegian context, these narratives are also understood in relation to what is often termed the national master narrative of the war. The thesis therefore examines how the books adhere to this narrative, and whether they challenge it through alternative perspectives or counter-narratives.
From an overarching perspective, the thesis examines how young readers may experience both the familiar and the unfamiliar in their encounter with historical material, and how this contributes to an understanding of how the past is experienced and actualized in the present.
In conclusion, the dissertation highlights the role of imagination in postmemory and its encounter with the child reader’s imaginative capacity. Activating the imagination is understood as a prerequisite for understanding, empathy, and reflection, and underpins the transmission of memory. It is through this interplay that a «living connection» to history is established.
What to do as an online audience member
The disputation is open to the public. To follow the trial lecture and the public defence online, register on Zoom.
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Opponent ex auditorio:
Deadline for the public to pose questions is during the break between the two opponents. Questions ex auditorio can be submitted to disputation chair.
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